What's wrong? These companies can't compete on their own.
The role of a stardards body is to establish a framework that everybody
can use. SQL is a good example. Every database vendor implements part
or all of the SQL stardard, but also provides extensions to it. These
extension are not part of the stardard, but the database vendors use
these extensions to differentiate their product from others.
W3C has setup a good set of stanards for the Web. If some users have
other needs, a company can provide for those needs as an extension to
those standards. Flash is a good example of an extension that has very
good market share. But Macromedia is not pushing for Flash to become a
W3C standard as far as I know.
If Apple wants Quicktime to become a W3C standard, how will they
accomplish to W3C goal of being non-discriminitory. Will Apple make
Quicktime for Linux, OS/2, Be, Amiga, Irix, BSD, etc.
Most or all of the W3C standards are horizontal -- they solve a wide
variety of problems. I can't even think of something that a Microsoft
or Apple may have as a patent that is need to solve a horizontal
problem. If its vertical, it doesn't really need to be a W3C standard.
They can compete with everybody else in that vertical market.